Motivation: Are You Resistant to Health and Fitness?

Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Of course you want to be healthy and fit! Who doesn't? But are you always motivated and willing to do what you need to do to create health and fitness?

Are you motivated to:

• Regularly do the workout or exercise your body needs to get and stay fit?
• Eat the foods you need to eat to get and stay healthy?
• Avoid the foods that erode health and fitness?
• Keep on learning about what creates health and fitness?

Or, do you find yourself:

• Procrastinating going to the gym?
• Procrastinating other important forms of exercise?
• Eating sugar and other junk food?
• Avoiding even knowing that you are responsible for your health and fitness?

Procrastinating and resisting are ways that you might have learned to avoid feelings that you believe you cannot manage feeling.

Why Did We Learn to Resist and Procrastinate?

Many of us grew up with parents or other caregivers who did not know how to love us in the way we needed to be loved. Not feeling loved is deeply lonely and heartbreaking to a small child. These feelings of loneliness and heartbreak, along with feeling helpless over getting the love we needed or avoiding the disapproval or punishment we could not handle, led us to learn to protect against these very painful feelings. We all learned many ways of protecting. You might have learned to protect by:

• Withdrawing, numbing out, dissociating
• Getting angry, blaming, having temper tantrums
• Turning to food, alcohol, or drugs
• Turning to TV, the computer, gaming
• Turning to sex, pornography
• Turning to over-achieving
• Becoming a "good" child - complying, giving yourself up
• Judging and shaming yourself
• Resisting and procrastinating

These are just a few of the many ways you might have learned to protect against pain. Stop for a moment and think about what you do to avoid pain in your life.

One of the major experiences that many of us had as children is that numerous adults tried to control us. Parents, teachers, religious leaders, siblings, friends - there may have been many people in your life who tried to control you with their judgments, criticisms, punishments, threats, withdrawal of love, invasiveness, or violence. You might have experienced various levels of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse that was deeply hurtful and frightening to you.

Or, you might have had parents or others caregivers who tried to be kind to you, but were unloving to themselves. They might have treated themselves badly - being addicted to food, drugs, alcohol, TV, anger, compliance, and so on. They were your role models for self care.

The problem is that all the ways these people treated you or themselves, and all the ways you learned to protect against pain, have now become a part of you - of how you treat yourself. In the Inner Bonding® process we teach for learning how to love yourself and others, we call the part of us that is like our parents or other caregivers, the "wounded self". This is the part we created to protect against the pain we could not manage as we were growing up. This is the part that is filled with many false beliefs about whom we are and about what we can and cannot control.

Let's say that you wake up early having decided the night before that you will definitely go to the gym this morning, but you end up not going - again.

What Is Happening Here?

What may be happening is that one part of your wounded self - maybe an adolescent part who believes that it can control you through judgment - has been saying in a determined and parental voice, "I HAVE to get to the gym this morning," or "I SHOULD go to the gym right now!"

The another part of your wounded self may kick in - a younger part who learned to resist being controlled by your parents or other important adults in your life. This younger part says, "I don't have to do what you say. You are not the boss of me."

Now you have an internal power struggle, with one part of your wounded self trying to have control through self-judgment and another part of your wounded self resisting being controlled. This inner power struggle creates a sense of immobilization, resulting in you not making it to the gym… and then perhaps feeling even more judgmental toward yourself.

Is There a Way Out of Resistance?

The way out is to develop what we call in Inner Bonding®, the "loving Adult". The loving Adult is a part of you who comes into being when you shift your intention from protecting to learning. The wounded self is always intent on protecting against pain with some form of controlling behavior, which is what creates all the problems. The intention of the loving Adult is to learn about what is loving to you and take loving action in your behalf. The loving Adult is who you are when your intent is to learn about loving yourself with a personal source of spiritual Guidance - your own higher self, your concept of God, a guardian angel, a spirit guide, or an energy of love. Practicing the Inner Bonding® process teaches you how to connect with your personal source of spiritual Guidance and develop your loving Adult.

When your loving Adult is in charge rather than your wounded self, then you are able to take actions that support your highest good. Instead of telling yourself that you HAVE to or SHOULD go to the gym, you tune into what you WANT to do and what is loving to you. Perhaps you really like going to the gym but you just don't want to be controlled by your judgmental wounded self. Or perhaps working out at the gym is not something you love to do and you would much rather dance or skateboard or play tennis or run or bike or hike. It is far easier and more loving to yourself to do what you love to do rather than what you think you have to do.

If you are resisting or procrastinating, you might want to learn how to develop your loving Adult so that you can stay on the path of being healthy and fit.

***

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is a best-selling author of 8 books, relationship expert, and co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® process - featured on Oprah. Are you are ready to heal your pain and discover your joy? Click here for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com/welcome and visit our website at http://www.innerbonding.com for more articles and help. Phone Sessions Available. Join the thousands we have already helped and visit us now!

Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Inner Bonding® Educational Technologies, Inc.
2531 Sawtelle Blvd., #42
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310-459-1700 • 888-646-6372 (888-6INNERBOND)
http://www.innerbonding.com